Charaka-Samhita — trans. Kaviraj Avinash Chandra Kaviratna

* In the previous Divisions of this treatise, the Rishi has laid down many considertions by which the period of life may be ascertained of a healthy man. The physician who aspires to skill in the cure of disease should attend to those considerations. The Science of Life has one object, viz., the ascertainment of the period of life, and teaching the means of lengthening it. When, therefore, it is said that the sum total of the fruits of the Science of Life is the period of life, what is meant is that the ascertainment of the period of life and its lengthening are the objects which the Science of Life has in view.

‘Dehin’ is ‘he who is invested with body or material case’, that is, the Self. The Self, when invested with body, is, of course, dependent upon ‘Ayus’ or period of life. Hence, the latter has certain other names, viz., ‘dhari’, ‘anubandha’, &c. Vide Lesson I., Sutrasthana. — T.

t ‘Transgressing the path of treatment’ implies that the faults become so excited that

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CHARAKA-SAMHITA.

Thus said the illustrious son of Atri.* i

He on whose head dandriff appears resembling dried cow-dung powder, and which goes off when the head is rubbed with oil, does not live more than a month. 2

He who, while afflicted with disease, rubs his feet, or in moving about feels that his shoulder-joints have become dislocated, does not live long in this world. 3

If the chest of a person, who has bathed and laved his body with sandal-paste and other unguents, becomes exceedingly dry when the other parts of the body are still wet, that person lives for •only a fortnight. 4

The life of that patient is difficult to be saved for whom the physician, in spite of all his efforts, fails to manufacture (the in¬ tended) medicines. 5

That man is beyond the pale of treatment in whom a medicine whose success has been repeatedly tried produces no change for the better even when well-applied. 6

That man who derives no benefit from even such food as has been properly cooked for him by the physician himself, is difficult to save. 1

In the Lesson on messengers we shall lay down certain symp¬ toms which prognosticate the near approach of death. Appre¬ hending these, the physician possessed of wisdom should certainly avoid the patient.f 8

If the physician, when his own hair is unkempt, or when he is naked, or when he is weeping, or when he is impure, sees the mes¬ senger come to fetch him, he should at once conclude that the patient on whose behalf the messenger has been sent, will die.| 9 they can no longer be controlled by treatment ; or their excitement manifests itself not¬ withstanding the check which treatment seeks to put upon them.

‘Kevalam’ means ‘samagram’ or entire. — T.

* This Lesson, like the previous ones, is called after the first words of the first verse following. ‘Gomaya’ is cow-dung ; ‘chuma’ is powder. Hence ‘Gomoyachurniyam’ implies that which relates to cowdung powder. — T.

t ‘Dutadhikara” i. e., in the Lesson on messengers sent for fetching the physician to the patient’s bed-side. — T.

t Some Bengali translators understand the verse to imply that the words ‘muktakega &c.’, apply to the messenger and not to the physician, so that the sense is this : if the messenger arrives with unkempt or loosened hair, or in a state of nakedness, &c., the physician should regard the patient’s death to be' near. This interpretation seems to be more natural. If the messenger’s hair is disordered, if he is undressed, if he is weeping,

CHARAKA-SAMHITA,

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The physician should never attend to those patients whose messengers come to him when he is sleeping or when he is cutting or piercing anything. 1°

Those messengers who come to the physician when the latter is engaged in pouring libations on the sacred fire, or while he is offering the rice-ball to his deceased ancestors, are to be regarded as desirous of killing their master and do actually kill them, n

Those patients are to be regarded as about to die whose mes¬ sengers come to the physician when the latter is speaking or think¬ ing of something that is evil. 12

Those patients should be regarded as on the point of death whose messengers come to the physician when the latter is engag¬ ed with a dead person, or a burnt or broken thing, or when he is talking of some such evil.*

If the physician beholds the messenger come to him when he is seated at a place that is endued with attributes similar to those of the disease under which the patient is suffering, or if he sees the messenger come at a time that agrees in its attributes with those of the disease which is to be treated, he should not take up the treatment.! l4 or if he is impure, not having had time, that is, to dress his hair and person, or go through the usual rites of purification, before setting out for the physician’s house, the physician should judge death to be near. — T.

* ‘Engaged with a dead person’, i. e., in cremating a body or in making arrangements for its cremation.

‘A burnt thing,’ i. e., when the physician is engaged in helping to extinguish a fire. ‘Vinashta’ is, literally, ‘lost ;’ hence, injured or damaged or broken objects. A physician may be engaged in repairing it when the messenger comes to fetch him. — T.